Look at that great smile.
Getting sleepy
"Whose back there?"
"This is my innocent face"
I thought I'd post a few pictures. I know they are all pretty similar but I just think Bennett is getting so cute and fun. He's really growing up too fast. 
This is what happens when I try to take a nap. What ws I thinking? I had bought a big bag of apples at sams club, woke up from my nap and asked "where are the apples?" Maya assured me they had eated them all, I looked in the trash and found all the apples looking like this. Being the frugal mom that I am I pulled them out washed them off and made apple cinnamon muffins. Call child protective services if you want but those muffins were heavenly (thanks to allrecipe.com)!
Sunday morning Bennett had a huge blowout on our sheets, and seeing as we only have one set of sheets I thought I'd prevent the stain by soaking them in the bathtub. I didn't realize that I had no quarters so those sheets got to soak quite a while and the kids got to take baths in the sink (Porter took one too but was too shy to let me take a picture. I guess thats a good thing).
An this one is just because he's so cute even when the flash is too bright.
So, I've decided it's not always a bad thing to get husbands involved in things. When Casey decided he was going to start running on the treadmill (my treadmill) this week my first instinct was to panic. He moved my pencil and my i pod for heavens sake, but I tried to be patient and see what this creative genius would come up with and I was plesantly surprised to see the finished result. Yesterday I walked while watching King of Queens and oh what an enjoyable expierence it was. I feel like I'm in my own private gym (at least thats what I like to pretend as I try to ignore the sweat dripping off my nose). It's great! Thanks Case!
As successful as Mix Tape 1 was, we decided to plod on with tape number two which is a homage to our life here in Philadelphia with songs from Rocky, Philadelphia, and other songs that remind us of Philly.
Now, for the special request.
Mix Tape #3 is going to be solely dedicated to songs that you remember from your stake dances, regardless of the decade or genre. I'm starting out with Kriss Kross's "Jump" which was a perennial favorite in Spokane. I mean, c'mon, backwards jeans, who wouldn't jump, jump. Now, you just tell me your favorites and we'll step back to the years when bangs were high and line dancing meant "Achy Breakey Heart!"
I'm Kasey Kasem
As
Rules:
1. Answer the questions
2. Tag 3 others and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Questions:
10 years ago . . .
I was nineteen. I had sent Aaron Charter off on his mission and was dating Jared Baber who I also sent on his mission. I had graduated and was attending Bowling Green State University where I was expanding my horizions by taking classes like Ice skating, Raquetball, Ballroom dancing, Bowling, Water aerobics, and Military tactics (Bet you didn't know I was so athletic)
5 things on my list of things to do today . . .
1. Work on stuff for Porters LEGO birthday party
2. Get quarters so I can wash my sheets that Bennett POOPED all over (big time blow out)
3. Treadmill (I wish just thinking about it burned calories)
4. Make Porters Birthday dinner (corndogs, mac and cheese, carrots, and chicken nuggets - I might try to lea
5. Cry because my baby is 5 years old (I can't believe it)
snacks I enjoy . . .
Where to start- Oreos & Milk, Reeses cups, pizza (does that count as a snack or a meal), Ice cream Friendlys black raspberry (anytime my mom sees my bowl of ice cream she asks "is that a snack or a meal?")cinnamon rolls, Oh man I've got to stop, I'm making myself hungry.
3 bad habits . . .
1. Thinking hateful thoughts towards my husband
2. Being impatient with my slow weight loss progress (and complaining about my body size and shape)
3. Using my devil voice to frighten the kids
5 places I've lived . . .
Germany
Killene, Texas
West Lafayette, Indiana
Philadelphia, Pa
Rexburg, Id
5 jobs I've had . . .
1. Secretary at a law firm (Twyman, Nelson, Tinbrink, Harms, and Sharp was the name of the firm, and everyone would say "thats a mouthful" when I answered the phone)
2. Quality Asurance at Greenline (a green bean factory, the perk was I got to eat all those delicious raw green beans))
3. Early morning janitor at BYU Idaho (zzzzz The only job I could do while wearing my P.J.s)
4. Decaler at Wabash (I loved putting those stickers on them trailers)
5. Mother (don't get me started, here come those hateful thoughts again)
5 things you don't know about me . . .
1. I have a bad habit of judging people who look like they have it all together (I just don't like them)
2. My secret ambition is to recieve 10 comments on a blog I post
3. My favorite bra is held together with dental floss
4. Sometimes when I sing I like to pretend I'm a contestant on American Idol
5. It's taken me about three hours to get this blog written (I feel an incredible amount of pressure to make mine as funny as Casey's and we all know that's impossible)
What if I suddenly had a million dollars . . .
I would find a way to hide it from Casey so he couldn't think of any hairbrained ways to spend it (Like he's doing with our tax return) then sporadically I would claim to have won X amount on the raido just as we happen to need X amount for something we never would have thought to budget for. I'd also claim to have won a house that just happens to be located on the Porter compound but the catch is you have to live in the house for at least 5 years in order to recieve your prize (who could pass that up?)
3 Ways I help the Environment...
1. I no longer take paper or plastic at the grocery or walmart, but instead bring my own super Heavy duty awesome tarpauline IKEA bags which only cost us 50cents (I especially love it when the check out girl sees my huge IKEA bag with two gallons of milk, 3 jugs of juice, and other random canned foods in it and says "good luck carrying that big bag in the house").
2. I try to cook vegetarian 1-2 nights a week thus decreasing my carbon footprint
3. I listen to Jack Johnson, he's environmental right? (does that count)
I'm tagging anyone who wants to spend forever trying to fish the answers to these questions out of their heads. If you've ever thought "I wish someone would tag me so I could participate in this fun game" this is for you. And be honest i'm sure someone out there is dying to do this. And if you do it you have to leave me a comment telling me you did.
These pictures are here because the grandparents have stated that they will no longer aquiesce to our requests for funding if we no longer post ample amounts of photos of the grandkids. So, here ya go, no how's about my $5.
We got snow! It was such a great day to play in the snow. We called all our friends and invited everyone out to play, and it was wonderful. Not too cold, and the snow was just the right kind of snow for playing in. Porter's favorite thing was (of course) snow ball fighting, Maya love building a snowman, and as you can tell from the picture Bennett loved the snow tea party! I think I may have had the most fun of all. It was a really great day. (NOTE: my camera batteries were dead so I had to rely of the mercy of friends to take pictures-thus there are no pictures of Maya. I was really ticked too cause it was a beautiful day for picture taking, but thanks to Elaine for this little gem.)
Rules:
1. Answer the questions
2. Tag 3 others and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
Questions:
10 years ago . . .
It was the last time I was with my beloved appendix before it was so lovingly snatched from my abdomen. I was in Salta Argentina and in zone conference no less, when I started to puke uncontrollably and only after being rushed to the Hospital where I had to wait for permission to be cut open, did I finally find sweet relief.
5 things on my list of things to do today . . .
1. Go to Work
2. Eat lunch
3. Come Home
4. Eat dinner
5. Enjoy the deliciousness of Twizzler Pull n' Peels cherry flavor!
snacks I enjoy . . .
see above #5, also, there are no vending machines at work, so the only snack I get is the occasional stick of gum.
3 bad habits . . .
1. Bite my nails
2. Let my car get utterly filthy before I clean it.
3. Amanda says I say, "Oye Ve" too much, but I don't notice it.
5 places I've lived . . .
SanAntonio, TX
Salt Lake City, UT
Spokane, WA
Salta, Argentina
Rexburg, Idaho
West Lafayette, IN
Philadelphia, PA......I know I cheated, but that's the entire list.
5 jobs I've had . . .
Bus Boy for Cyrus O' Leary's (Fired)
Newspaper Deliver Boy for Spokesman Review (Fired and Rehired numerous times)
Landscaper for Lone Pine Nursery (Almost Fired after dumping a load of gravel all over the only road into Jackson Hole, WY backing up traffic for hours.)
Independent Lawn Mower (Fired by each individual homeowner, yeah, that one stung a little.)
Ball Picker for The Orchard Driving Range (Wanted to Fire myself to get away from the crazy old woman who ran the place.)
5 things you don't know about me . . .
I'll publicly tell you I hate country music, but secretly, I can sing every word of Garth Brook's 'Rodeo' on cue.
I've gone a whole school day not knowing my zipper was down, and when asked about it, I casually played it off like, "Duh, It's the cool thing now!"
I used to staple posters and pictures to the roof of my '83 Chevy Beauville and put a couch in as the 3rd row of seats.
I will not squash a bug. Just the thought of the texture and sound of a crushing exoskeleton makes my liver crawl.
Whenever I walk next to someone, I tend to gravitate towards them until I bump into them on accident.
What if I suddenly had a million dollars . . .
I would by a K-car, a nice Reliant automobile.(BNL) I would most likely curse and scream that I had to pay 50% of it towards taxes, but then I would probably get over it and want to play Monopoly using real money instead of Monopoly money.
3 Ways I help the Environment...
1. I no longer take paper or plastic at the grocery or walmart, but instead bring my own super Heavy duty awesome tarpauline IKEA bags which only cost us 50cents.
2. I use public transportation every day to get to and home from work, but this probably has more to do with economics reasons than environmental.
3. I have tried to switch most of our lightbulbs over to incandescent bulbs.
I'm tagging Peggy(don't worry mom, i'll walk you through it), Brad, and Kathy.
Feel Free to add your own questions.
Let me start out by saying that we love Corndogs. Those sweet and golden crunchy meals on a stick hold great sway in the Elmer Household. You might even say that Corndogs are the golden delicious oblong orbs around which our entire universe revolves. Needless to say, we love Corndogs.
A travesty, nay, a blasphemous event occurred this morning as Amanda and I lay sleeping in our beds as Porter comes running in and shouts, "I made a Corndog, but it burned! Come see, it's all smokey!" Sure enough I burst out of the bedroom only to be knocked back by a wall of smoke. For some insane reason, the fire alarm hadn't gone off, but the entire apartment was filled with hazy, choking, smoke. I batted the fire alarm off the ceiling before it could go off, then ran to the microwave where Porter had set a single frozen corndog in and pushed 15 minutes. Luckily he had the sense to stop it at 9:13 minutes before the whole house when up in flames. The smoke forced everyone back to the bedroom where we had to wait out the smoke as it was blown out the sliding porch door. We hid out in the bedroom for about and hour while the smoke cleared, but needless to say we fingered the culprit and put him on kitchen duty so that hopefully we will never lose another corndog, no, not on my watch. (Also, all microwave use by Porter has been strictly prohibited)
Last night for family home evening, we thought we'd make moustaches out of pipe cleaners. From left to Right: Sherriff Bakey Beans, Deputy Roscoe "Poopy" Coltrane, Outlaw Black Bart, and Miss Curly Sue.
Amanda's Family, the Porters came out on thanksgiving to spend time with us and see the sites, however, as go most family vacations, after only a few days we were trying to entertain ourselves by playing stupid human tricks. Of course Hannah, Amanda's youngest sister got the best response. We're still waiting to hear back from America's Funniest Videos (seriously, they really wanted to use it.) Notice around second :38 the 4 D Batteries come tumbling out of the swing onto her head. We just ended up getting a new swing.
Since Thursday evening, Amanda and I have both been sick. Normally I would welcome illness as to have a little down time, but since both of us are sick with strep and flu like symptoms, we're both miserable with no one to pamper us. Of course the kids saw this as a unique opportunity to run amok throughout the apartment.
Maya ended making playdough cookies for her brothers and Bennett, becasue he couldn't wait that long for the cookies to bake resorted to his second favorite meal, "The Little Piggy who went to Market" as well as "The Little Piggy who went to Target" (Maya's version of course). Porter has been devouring Ice cream bars, applesauce, pudding snacks and anything else he can get his grubbly little fingers on and because Amanda and I are both tag teaming taking naps, his schedule is thrown off and he keeps asking for lunch at 8 in the morning. If this keeps up, our children will form some kind of Lord of the Flies Daycare.
So i'm up for suggestions from you what songs should be on our next Mix Tape, i'm always looking for new artists but I always love to hear a classic Beastie Boys song now and again, so let me know what you want to hear on the next one.
Ok so Will and Nicole had their New baby yesterday (10 days early) and she is beautiful. So sweet and little (just a smigg over 6 lbs) they named her Ryan Claire Elmer. I made the mistake of looking at their blog and seeing the pictures and now I WANT A NEW BABY (Imagin Viola Swapp from Willy Wonka)!! I'm so sad I'm not there to hold her and kiss that sweet baby hair, but I guess for now I'll have to rely on blogspot to keep me intouch (speaking of which I'm desperatly waiting for them to post new pictures. I've checked 5 times today!).
